


You Will Come of Age

by Daisy_Rivers



Series: Meant to Be [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Childhood Friends, Destiny, F/M, Growing Up Together, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, OT3, True Love, Young Love, not even close to canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18654232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Rivers/pseuds/Daisy_Rivers
Summary: More about Alex, Eliza, and John as children. In this piece, they are seven years old and planning their future. Angelica is a bossy nine-year-old know-it-all.





	You Will Come of Age

John always knew what he wanted to be. “I’m going to be an artist,” he said when they were seven. They were in his room, and he was showing them his sketchbook. “An artist is somebody who makes pictures or sculptures.”

Alex and Eliza were lying side-by-side on the floor. “What’s a sculpture?” Alex asked.

John bit his lip and tried to describe it with his hands. “It has a shape. Pictures are flat, but a sculpture is shaped like something.”

“Like a statue?” Eliza asked.

“Yes!” John said. “A statue is a sculpture, but statues are usually of people, and a sculpture can be of anything.”

Alex frowned. “Like what? Like a tree?”

John thought about it. “Yeah, an artist could make a sculpture of a tree. I don’t think I want to make sculptures, though. I like to make pictures.” He had all kinds of art supplies in his room, and he drew pictures all the time, pictures of the beach, of people, of anything that caught his eye. Alex and Eliza knew that if they saw a particularly interesting shell or feather or piece of driftwood that they should bring it to John. During the school year, he took art lessons, and he kept his best pictures in a special drawer. “For my portfolio,” he told them, and then explained what a portfolio was.

“I think I want to be a policeman,” Alex said. “I want to make people stop doing bad things.”

“Like what?” Eliza asked. She sat up and leaned against the foot of John’s bed.

“You know,” Alex responded, “like on TV. If bad guys are trying to hurt somebody, then the police arrest them.”

Eliza looked worried. “Would you shoot them?”

Alex shook his head. “No. I would just arrest them.”

“What if they tried to get away?” John asked.

“I might knock them down or something, but I wouldn’t shoot anybody.”

John gave him a skeptical look. “I don’t think you can be a policeman if you won’t shoot the bad guys.”

“I _can._ There are policemen who never shoot anybody,” Alex insisted.

John was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but he didn’t feel like arguing. “Maybe you can have some other kind of job that keeps people from doing bad things.”

“Like what?” Alex asked, interested. Now that he’d thought about it, maybe police work wasn’t for him.

“Like keeping the ocean clean?” Eliza suggested.

Alex nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to do that, make people stop polluting the earth.”

“Are there police for that?”

“I don’t think so. There are people who make laws about it,” John said.

“Who makes the laws?” Alex asked.

“Congress,” John told him. Having a wealthy, well-connected father had introduced John to a variety of local politicians.

“Huh,” Alex said thoughtfully, “I never thought of that. Maybe I’ll be in Congress.”

John grinned at him. “That would be cool. You might be on TV.”

“We could help you get elected,” Eliza said. “Angelica had an election at school, and I helped her make posters.”

“What are you going to be, Eliza?” Alex asked.

“I think maybe a counselor, like we have at school. She helps kids who feel sad.” She thought for a minute. “And a mom. Do you guys want to have kids?”

Alex and John looked at each other. John nodded. “Yeah, I think so. You’ll be the mom and Alex and I will be the dads.”

Eliza smiled. Alex was still lying on the floor, so she got back down and snuggled close to him and then held out her hand. “C’mere, John.”

“We should get on the bed,” John said. “It’s comfier.”

That was true, and in a few minutes, the three of them were cuddling together, Alex in the middle.

“What kind of house should we have?” Eliza asked, her voice a little sleepy.

“It depends on how many kids we have,” John pointed out practically. “How many do you want?”

“Two or three, I think. How about you, Alex?”

“Two, a boy and a girl.”

“Yeah, that would be good,” Eliza agreed. “Can we have a white house with green shutters?”

John got to make the decisions on matters of esthetics. “Yes, if it has a front porch,” he said.

Eliza’s head was on Alex’s shoulder, and she closed her eyes, thinking of a white house with a big front porch. _We’ll plant flowers in the yard_ , she thought, but she fell asleep before she could say it.

*      *      *      *      *

Later, back home and in the bedroom she shared with her sisters, she said to her mother, “I’m going to marry John and Alex, and we’re going to have two kids and live in a white house.”

Peggy was already asleep, but Angelica was wide awake. “You can’t marry two people, dummy,” she said scornfully.

“Angelica, we do not call names,” her mother reproved.

“Sorry,” Angelica mumbled, “but she can’t.”

“Yes, I can,” Eliza told her. “I’m going to be the mom and Alex and John are going to be the dads. My friend Olivia has two dads, right, Mom?”

Catherine nodded. “Yes, Olivia has two dads, but she doesn’t have a mom.”

Eliza’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t?”

“No, sweetie. Chris and Brian are her dads. They’re married to each other just like Daddy and I are married to each other.”

“But couldn’t Chris and Brian marry a girl so Olivia could have a mom?”

Catherine hesitated. This wasn’t a discussion she really wanted to be having with her seven-year-old. “Well, they really couldn’t because you can only be married to one person at a time.”

“Told you!” Angelica gloated, and then flushed at Catherine’s warning look.

“But you know Olivia has lots of grown-up women who love her, like her aunt Amy and Brian’s cousin Michelle,” Catherine continued.

Eliza’s little face was filled with concern. “But that’s not the same as a mom.”

“Olivia’s a very happy little girl,” Catherine reminded her.

“Yeah …” Eliza wasn’t convinced. “Well, I’m going to be the mom anyway.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a very good mom when you’re grown up,” Catherine told her, tucking the coverlet over her middle daughter.

“So are you going to marry Alex or John?” Angelica asked.

“I told you already, both of them,” Eliza said in exasperation.

“You can only marry one,” Angelica repeated.

Eliza looked at her mother, and Catherine nodded. “That’s the way it works, but I’m sure you’ll figure it all out. You’re only seven now, so you don’t need to decide who you’re going to marry for years and years yet.”

Eliza was aware of a cold lump of fear settling in her chest. She couldn’t possibly articulate it, but the idea of having to choose either John or Alex terrified her. She didn’t answer her mother, and turned on her side to face away from Angelica as Catherine switched off the light.

“I’m going to marry Alex and John,” she repeated in a tiny whisper that Angelica couldn’t hear. “I love them both, so I can marry them both. I _will._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of people seemed to enjoy "Meant to Be," and I find that there is more to say about our OT3 as children. I'll be posting other pieces about them at various ages, and we'll see where it goes. Let me know what you think. I love hearing from readers.


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